The National Women’s Soccer League kicked off its 2024 season looking pretty different than it did in 2023.

This year, the league introduced two expansion teams, one in Utah and one in the Bay Area. In the Midwest, the Kansas City Current opened the first venue built specifically for a women’s pro sports team. And the league is gearing up for “record-breaking distribution and revenue” thanks to a $240 million four-year media rights deal inked last season with CBS, ESPN, Amazon Prime Video, and Scripps Sports.

There’s been a lot to keep up with in the offseason, which is why the NWSL’s ad campaign marking the start of this season is called “Keep Up,” according to CMO Julie Haddon. The ad, which builds off the league’s inaugural “We Play Here” campaign, serves to introduce the NWSL to the influx of new fans that have come on board as women’s sports, soccer in particular, have gained popularity.

“Our message in 2024 is to really capitalize against that momentum and hop on this tidal wave that is women’s soccer in America,” Haddon told Marketing Brew.

New blood: Last year’s campaign kicked off with the line “allow us to reintroduce ourselves,” followed almost immediately by a shot of one of the most recognizable US soccer players, Megan Rapinoe. But Rapinoe retired last year, along with several other NWSL and national team legends, including Ali Krieger and Julie Ertz. Now, the league and its players are reintroducing themselves again.

• This year’s ad features younger players like Alyssa and Gisele Thompson, 18- and 19-year-old sisters who play for Angel City FC, and 23-year-old Portland Thorns FC forward Sophia Smith.
• The spot also points out the two new teams, the Utah Royals and Bay FC.

The 60-second spot is narrated by Kansas City Current midfielder Lo’eau LaBonta, who appears in the ad doing her now-famous twerk celebration (even Travis Kelce knows it). Given that this season kicked off at the KC Current’s historic new stadium, it only made sense for a player from that team to narrate it, Haddon said.

Continue reading here.—AM

85% of CEOs surveyed by the IBM Institute for Business Value say that generative AI will be interacting directly with customers in the next 2 years—if it’s not already.

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In this guidebook, learn how to take the next steps to combine the capabilities of traditional and generative AI.

Want a snack delivered straight to you while watching the Olympics? By the time the Paris Games roll around, you might be in luck.

NBCUniversal is debuting a new e-commerce ad tool called Virtual Concessions, where users can order food and drinks through on-screen QR codes during NBCU programming and get them delivered to their homes.

The offering, which NBCU announced at its One24 tech conference on Wednesday, will officially roll out during the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics this summer. Following the games, virtual concessions will also be available on Peacock, and will be targeted around sports, starting with club soccer, and movie-watching.

While the logistics around Virtual Concessions are still being fine-tuned, the food ads may appear during pre-roll and/or through a pop-up during programming, Josh Feldman, global CMO for NBCU’s ad and partnerships division, said during a press event last week.

Continue reading here.—JS

College football fans may never forget the final score from certain January match-ups. They may also be able to recall the names of the brands that showed up in some of those games.

Many major brands associated with college football “continued to see exceptional unaided brand association” as a result of their ads and sponsorships, according to Big Chalk, a marketing analytics company.

In a survey, Big Chalk asked more than 900 people who watched at least one college football bowl game or playoff game last season if they could name any of the sponsor brands without looking at a list. The company fielded the survey on Jan. 29 and Jan. 30, three to four weeks after some of the games in question.

Name that brand: Nike had the highest unaided brand recall of the college football postseason sponsors, according to Big Chalk’s report, which is the second in a two-part series analyzing perceptions of college sports. More than 10% of respondents named Nike, followed by more than 7% who recalled Tostitos.

• Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and Gatorade rounded out the top five at 5.6%, 5.5%, and 4.5% recall.
• Allstate and Capital One, both longtime NCAA partners, each saw 4.1% unaided recall.
• AT&T, Chick-fil-A, and Dr Pepper completed the top 10.

While these percentages might seem small, “high unaided recall is considered the pinnacle of brand development,” especially for CPG brands, according to Big Chalk. It’s hard for consumers to recall brands without any assistance, so one percentage point of aided recall can be equivalent to as many as 15 points of unaided, Miller said.

Continue reading here.—AM

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